About Councilmember Navarro

I serve as the Council Vice-President and the Montgomery County Councilmember representing District 4. I am the chair of the Government Operations and Fiscal Policy Committee and also serve on the Health and Human Services Committee.

ROCKVILLE, Md., March 12, 2012—All nine members of the Montgomery County Council today signed a statement expressing their concern about the Department of Homeland Security’s detention and pending deportation of Germantown resident Jorge Steven Acuña (age 19), his mother, Blanca, and his father, Jorge.

“We urge the White House and the Department of Homeland Security to intervene in this terrible situation,” the statement reads. “We also call on Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform to finally fix this broken system.”

The complete Montgomery County Council statement on the detention and pending deportation of the Acuña Family:

We are deeply concerned by the Department of Homeland Security’s detention and pending deportation of Germantown resident Jorge Steven Acuña (age 19) and his mother, Blanca Susana Acuña and father, Jorge Acuña.

This issue was brought to our attention because of the incredible outpouring of support and activism by students at Montgomery College. More than 4,000 people have signed a petition and joined a Facebook group in an effort to stop this unjust action by the federal government.

Jorge’s parents brought him to the United States from Colombia when he was 8 years old. He grew up in Montgomery County, was an honor student at Northwest High School, and is only a semester away from graduating from Montgomery College. His parents, in an effort to do the right thing and seek legal asylum status, were caught up in our nation’s broken immigration system and now face the prospect of deportation. The entire family is currently being held in an ICE facility on the Eastern Shore.

In a similar situation earlier this month in Florida, ICE used its prosecutorial discretion and decided to defer deportation of an 18-year-old high school valedictorian who was born in Colombia and came to the United States at 4 years old. We encourage ICE to use the same good judgment again, this time in the case of the Acuña Family.

We stand committed to working with Congressman Chris Van Hollen and Senators Ben Cardin and Barbara Mikulski to help the Acuña Family avoid deportation. The Acuña Family’s attorney has prepared an emergency stay application and the Montgomery County Council is strongly supportive of this request.

We urge the White House and the Department of Homeland Security to intervene in this terrible situation. We also call on Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform to finally fix this broken system.